Fairytale
by DocHippy
Summary: A mother who was sold to slavery convinces a pirate captain to take her child under his wing in order to save him from a fate similar to hers.
1. Mothers and Children

**Okay.. Hi. I know I haven't finished my other story and that it's been.. a year and a half. But now i suddenly felt like starting a new one, so... :) I hope you enjoy it, and if I'll see people are interested I'll keep publishing. And to those of you who didn't read my older stuff, please note that English is not my native language and be thoughtful, thanks :)**

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"No! No! Please, Henry! Don't take him- oh, please! Henry! Keep shouting so I'll know where they're taking you! I'll find you!" But the toddler's voice was lost in a sea of grunting and yelling as a muscular, dirty man carried him away from her. Two other men, just as beefy, dragged her by her armpits along the short, damp corridor that divided the two rows of wooden cells, built on the inside walls of the belly of a big ship. One of them held her hands behind her back, twisted so that she couldn't move without dislocating both of her shoulders, while the other pushed a small wicket open. She was immediately shoved into a wooden cell, overly crowded with women of all ages, and suddenly the chaos became real. Coughs, shouts for help and mercy, hollers of pain and agony, mad laughter, quiet mumblings that mixed to create a noise similar to the hum of a full nest of wasps.

"Where are we going?" she numbly tried to ask, willing to take any answer from anybody, but no response was granted. Her weak voice was swallowed, just like Henry's.

"Alright, you dirty rats, shut your mouths and stand up for the captain!"

Suddenly every mouth was closed, every pair of eyes glimmered with anticipation. The crowed around Emma was shifted as those who were sitting or lying down rose, with some effort, to their feet and she was pressed uncomfortably against the moldy wooden bars.

His feet were the first to appear as he walked down the stairs, as if he was walking on steady ground- his boots remarkably scrubbed, shining in black. The end of a long leather coat waved around his ankles and a glint of clean metal illuminated dimly in the weak light the few oil lamps provided. His face, scarred and sun-burnt, were almost animalistic with the broad, black stripes around the eyes, the feathery black strands of hair that escaped the dark ribbon on the back of his neck and the exposed teeth. "I assume you all know what awaits you." The captain's voice was quiet and dangerous, crawled between the cages like a slippery, oil covered snake. Not even a single breath was heard in the utter silence that consumed everything. "I do hope that it is very clear to all of you that I will not hesitate to personally kill every one of you who tries to… harden this journey for me or for my men." He continued. "You may not speak, you may not pray, you may not make any noise at all unless you have been directly ordered to do so. You may not go out of the cages until we reach our destination, in three or four days. I don't even have to bother with stating the obvious, but I will, for the slow minded of you- when you are given an order, you obey at once, or you die. Don't bother trying to go against me. Although it would cost me some of my profits, I can and I most certainly will slaughter every last one of you, no matter who was involved. Is that understood?" Some nodded, some were frozen. The threat, coming from anyone else, would have sounded unrealistic, ridiculous even. No pirate slave trader in his right mind would consider killing all of his prisoners over one attempted riot, but his bright eyes and the tongue that slipped over his front teeth told a different story. A bloodier one.

He turned slowly to face the other row of cells. "Well, I bid you a pleasant journey," he smiled wolfishly and started to walk towards the stairs to the deck.

"Wait!" a shrieking, terrified voice broke the silence, and fear struck everyone as the pirate captain stopped, the muscles of his back evidently tightened with rage. He slowly turned around. "I see your brain isn't your finest feature, miss..?"

Emma gulped silently. She had to use his attention wisely, or Henry would be left an orphan sooner than she had expected. "Where is it that we're going?" she managed to ask.

He raised a thick eyebrow. "I think I'll refer everything that just happened here to sheer stupidity, love, but if you were a tad less pretty I would have killed you the moment you spoke. From now on," he came to stand in front of her, close enough for her to smell the sea salt and rum on his skin. "You may not speak unless you are told to speak, when I ask you a question you answer at once, and you may absolutely not say anything to me but 'yes captain' or 'no captain', unless I asked you something that requires a different answer. Because in the next time something like this happens," his blue eyes seemed agonizingly human as he spoke the next words. "I will treat it as audacity and disobedience. And those are two things I will not have on my ship, and especially not from a slave." The last sentence was louder, both to intimidate her and to make sure everyone else heard. "Is this clearer to you now, princess? You've managed to wrap your mind around it this time?"

She nodded slightly. "Yes, captain."

He smiled at her. "Good!" he praised her mockingly. "See? It wasn't that hard, now, was it?"

She kept her fear and frustration from reaching her voice. "No, captain." She answered him. The smile vanished from his face. "Excellent." He said, and resumed walking to the staircase. As he reached it, he turned back again. "You are on the Jolly Roger, ladies and gentlemen, on your way to be sold in the Enchanted Forest. I am Captain Jones," he smiled ironically before adding: "at your service." And disappearing up the stairs.

Emma rubbed her chest in order to relieve the tension that had formed there. She's missed her chance to use the captain's attention to improve Henry's condition, but at least she was alive.

* * *

The next few days were an increasing nightmare. She couldn't tell between nights and days .The suffocating smell of vomit, feces and urine seemed to invade every thought she had, and the nausea was almost unbearable, not to mention the hunger and the thirst. But above all, beyond the humiliation and the fear, was the silence. The silence that kept her from knowing whether Henry was alright or not, whether Henry was alive or not. The children's cage was as quiet as the adults'. She toyed with the idea of trying to talk to him, at the very least letting him know that she was still alive and well and maybe even hearing his voice in response- but the risk was too great, after she had already drawn attention to herself once.

Only one of the oil lamps was still illuminating when the captain came back. Most of the captives were sleeping in their cells, accepting the fact that there was nothing they could do for themselves. Emma's hand was dangling from one of the horizontal wooden bars and her face was pressed against it, splinters digging into her dirty cheek. The loud thuds of a heavy pair of boots across the floor made her eyelids flutter and then open wide. The captain was standing right in front of her again, reeking with sweat and rum. He swayed a little, but not because of the waves that rocked the ship. He was drunk. She was given a second chance.

She stretched her back and made eye contact with him, almost flinching at the intensity of his drunken glare. His glassy, blue eyes seemed fragile, but not delicate, as if they were thick, brick walls that had suffered one blow after the other until they were finally beginning to crack. She said nothing, waiting for him to address her, as he earlier instructed her.

"Why did you ask me that question?" He finally asked her, putting one hand on the cell and leaning on it. His voice was steady, but not as intimidating as it was when he was sober. "What do you have here that's worth dying for?"

Emma couldn't believe the opportunity that was so simply dropped into her lap. She knew she had to proceed with great caution. "A child," she replied carefully, constantly observing him for any changes her answer may have provoked. And indeed, an unclear emotion glimpsed on his face and softened his features for a brief moment. The alcohol was softening him. "We were captured together by your men."

"My men didn't capture you, lassie." His face twitched and he searched his pockets until he found a silver flask and swigged. "I only get paid for delivery."

"Where will they take him?" she whispered, not having to put any effort into sounding honestly terrified. The tone seemed to have strum the right strings in his alcohol immersed soul.

"Usually the Madam gets to pick first." He almost shamefully admitted. "She doesn't often pick young boys," he added as he saw how horror was starting to dawn on her face. "How old is he?"

"Five," Emma whispered.

"So he won't end up in a brothel, probably. Not as a prostitute, anyway. Perhaps she'll take him as a cleaner. But I can't say the same for you." There was no mockery or joy in his voice. He seemed almost resentful of her fate. He shook his head, as if trying to elude a thought. "And if she doesn't take him he'll probably be taken by a landlord. At most cases, this isn't a fate I would wish upon any child. He'll learn the taste of violence soon enough. The ones left are usually killed." He squinted. "Why all the shock? You didn't expect slavery to be pleasant, did you?"

She breathed heavily. "Is there anything you can do for him?" she finally dared to ask, her voice a perfect mixture of desperation and hope. "I'll do anything. Please."

Suddenly, something blocked the sincerity she caught hints of in his blue gaze. Without another word, he turned and left.

And just like that, the final chance to save her child was gone.

* * *

A few hours, or days, later, the starved, sick population of the ship felt the considerable bump that informed them of their arrival to a dock. A few large men emerged from the hatch and down the staircase, frowning at the smell. They unlocked the cages, and all at once the small, dark space was filled with rushing people, eager to see the sunlight after long days in the moldy, well-sealed belly of the ship.

Emma was in a different kind of rush. She pushed her way in the agitated crowd, trying to spot the brown hair, the slim figure, the little voice. She was on the brink of tears, exhausted and desperate to succeed, when she finally heard a faint, familiar cry. "Mommy!"

"Henry!" she called, a powerful emotion rushing through her in waves of electricity. "Henry! I'm here! Come here!" and all of the sudden her little boy was flying out of the people stream like a bullet discharging from a pistol. She open her arms to catch him and held him tight to her chest as she did.

"Mommy," he cried, unable to express the distress he must have been feeling.

"I know, baby, I know," she whispered in return, just as unable to comfort him. "But I'm here now, baby, everything's alright." He sniffed as she let go of him and held his tiny chin between a thumb and a finger. "Okay?"

He nodded. Emma took his hand and made herself inhale deeply. She could hear sharp yelling from the deck and prayed that Henry couldn't, even though the fear that never left his small eyes was now beginning to rebuild itself.

The sunlight was nearly blinding, and the fresh breeze reminded Emma of what it was like to use her lungs properly. But they were given no time to adjust before a rough hand grabbed Emma by the arm and threw her to stand in the end of a line of quivering women, guarded by a wall of large men. They were counted, then counted again, while she helplessly watched as Henry tumbled and fell, tears filling his eyes as a heavy man grabbed him harshly by his armpit. "Henry!" she screamed as the little creature attempted to peel the thick fingers from his skin and received a loud slap across his face. "Henry!"

"Shut up!" yelled another man, short and rat-like, who was too clean to be a pirate.

"Henry!" Emma carried on yelling nonetheless, searching for a way around the guards that kept her from her child.

"I said shut up!" was all she heard before a hard object came crashing on her back, sending her to the hard wooden floor, seeing stars. "Get up!"

"Henry…" she managed to blurt, as the small, fragile figure disappeared from her eyes.

"What on earth do you think you're doing, you bloody brute?" a clear voice was abruptly heard above the tumult, cutting through it and leaving many mouths shut and many eyes wide with awe. The captain slowly walked towards the man who had Henry wiggling in his firm grasp.

"I'm taking this slave to its place," the man's thick voice was highly careful.

"This just happens to be my personal child!" exclaimed the captain. Emma swallowed a gasp. "He has lived on this ship since the day he was born! And you mean to tell me you mistook him for a slave?"

The man's voice was a lot less confident when he answered. "There's a child missing, and he's the last one-"

"A child has died over the journey." The captain replied, his voice nearly indifferent. "We had to throw the body into the ocean."

The man reluctantly let go of Henry's hand, and he immediately ran towards Emma. She desperately tried to signal him to stay away, but it was of no use. He somehow managed to get through the line and reach her. "Mommy," He cried and wrapped his hands around her waist.

She almost didn't want to say the next few words that left her mouth, as if she could have just stayed right there and then and embrace her child forever. "It has been very nice to meet you, Henry," she said loudly enough for everyone to hear, but not loudly enough to keep her from hearing her heart crack with every syllable. "But I am not your mother, we can stop pretending now, because I have to go and you have to stay." She gulped the hard lump down her throat. "So go on and join your father, dear," she gestured at the captain. "I hope we'll meet again someday."

"But you are my real mother!" he yelled, frightened and confused.

"No, Henry, I'm not. We've only met a few days ago, on the ship. Please go to your father now."

"No!"

"Henry, please."

"No, mommy, I want you! You're m-" the sentence was cut as the squealing boy was lifted from behind.

"Henry, say goodbye." Said Captain Jones quietly.

"No," henry cried, trying to reach his mother.

"Goodbye, dear." Emma's voice broke.

"No!" Henry shouted as he was carried down a different staircase, a cleaner one, and slowly disappearing from Emma's eyes. "No! No! Mommy! Mommy, no!"

The urging need to run and get her boy was overwhelming. But after she was lead to the dock and the ship had already sailed away, to the horizon and beyond, she knew it was too late.

When she turned her back to the ocean, she found herself face to face with wrinkled skin powdered white, and tired, cunning eyes under an overly large purple wig. Yellow teeth peeked from between two painted lips in an intimidating smile.

"I'll take this one," said the madam, and a bag was almost immediately put over Emma's head.

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 **tell me what did you think! honest reviews help me improve both my writing and my english :D**


	2. Innocence

**Hi :) here's the new chapter. I usually won't update it so quickly, but since I had a little time to spare... there it is. I hope you'll enjoy it. Things get a little darker, but thats why this story is rated M. Trigger alerts would be... prostitution, I guess, but this is no surprise considering how the previous chapter ended. So... that's about it :D**

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"Boy," the captain's voice came from behind the closed door of his own cabin. "May I please come in?" No answer was given, and he rubbed his forehead and used his finger to put pressure on a spot between his eyebrows. There were other children on his ship until recently. Other children with mothers, maybe even mothers who were in the very same delivery. Other children that he assisted leading to the beginning of life worse than death, if they weren't executed already. Yet he chose to save that woman's child in particular, he chose him out of all those other children. But in order to deal with that decision and its consequences, he had to keep himself from thinking of it.

Slowly, he pushed the door and entered the room, carefully observing the thin boy whose legs were dangling from the edge of the hard bed. He was so out of place with his tiny, frozen, tear-washed face, sitting on a bed like this, the captain thought as a tinge of pity tugged at his hardened heart. He came closer to the bed, but didn't sit on it.

"Are you really my father?" asked the boy, breaking the long silence.

"No, boy, I've only just met you earlier today." He responded, wondering what the confession would result in.

"But I saw you when you came to the cages."

The captain sighed. "Yes, but I probably didn't notice you, there were a lot of children in the cages."

"Why did she lie?"

He struggled the idea of explaining him what sort of life his mother was trying to spare from him. "Your mother did what she had to do." He chose to say plainly.

"Where is she?"

Probably selling her body for someone else's profit, he thought. "She's in a bad place."

"That's why she gave me to you?" the boy's brown eyes were wide open, as if they were trying to swallow the complexity of the situation itself.

"Yes," relieved from the burden of the explanations, the captain sighed awkwardly. But he still felt like he needed to say something more. "She did a brave thing for you, you should be grateful to her. You're a clever boy, you must have figured it out on your own already."

Henry seemed tempted to nod at that compliment and agree to let the subject go, silently take the offered bribe. But he didn't. His tired, puzzled face showed no recognition. A sharp bark of laughter left the captain's mouth and startled the boy. "Good, boy." He said after clearing his throat. "You're not sold for compliments. That's good. Important."

"What happens now?" Henry inquired.

"I don't know, boy. I think you may be here for a while, until I find a proper home for you."

"My mom won't come?"

"I don't think she will." He said. The boy seemed to take it rather well, considering the circumstances.

"Are you my friend?" He asked. "Graham wasn't my father, but he said he was my friend."

"I'm not your friend." Urgency laced into his voice as he replied. Getting attached wouldn't do the boy any good. He had the rare chance to do something good- to help the boy use the situation to learn how to get by on his own, how to rid himself of the dependence on other people.

"Okay." The boy said, his eyebrows squeezed together. Maybe this wasn't the right thing to do, maybe the young soul didn't have to be irreparably damaged for the boy to forge himself. But this was none of his business. In the nearest port, he would put the boy in an orphanage and live on with the memory of the uncompromising doubt on the small face.

* * *

Emma was sitting in a small attic, wondering what might have happened if Henry and she would have gone on their way when they planned to go, two days before the raid. They would have been weary and hungry, probably sleeping on the ground near the main road, on their way to a port town, a journey of about ten days. They would have been together. She wouldn't have had to leave him with a pirate and hope for the best, she wouldn't have had to sit there and wait for the painted woman to come back for her, suffocate on the cheap perfume that failed to mask other scents.

The madam didn't return. Instead, a tall woman whose age was hidden behind a thick layer of white powder came in the small room and shot a sharp glance at Emma. She sat down in front of her, and without saying a word pulled out a drawer from a nearby table and started to apply a large amount of sour-smelling, pink powder on her right cheek bone. Emma recoiled with a hiss. "What are you doing?" she spat out. The woman seemed unimpressed.

"Where do you think you are, exactly?" She asked in a quiet, intelligent voice, while preparing another pile of the pink powder for Emma's other cheek. "You work for Madam Ursula now. And I'm here under her orders. She told me to prepare you for the introduction tonight, so you sit quietly while I do what she told me to do. Are we clear about this?"

"What is the introduction?" Emma asked, marking her defeat at that. The woman smeared the powder professionally and pulled out a red pencil from the drawer before answering the question.

"When we have new arrivals the madam throws a special party, and the new girls are introduced to the usual crowd." She answered matter-of-factly while carefully coloring Emma's tightened lips. "Loosen your lips or it will look ugly. There you go. Most of the times there's an auction for the virgins. Are you a virgin?" She raised her brown eyes to meet Emma's gray ones.

"No." Emma whispered, thinking of Henry.

"Could you pass for a virgin?"

Emma huffed. "I don't know," She replied, irritated and blushed.

"How long since you last had sex?" Asked the woman as she took out a small, dirty porcelain box, and opened it to reveal a small pile of blue, greasy-looking dust. She gently covered the tip of her index finger with it. "Close your eyes." She ordered Emma. Emma obeyed and the woman began to color her eyelids. "I asked you a question."

"It's been years." Emma answered, not opening her eyes in fear of getting some of the suspicious material in them.

"How many years? Be specific." The woman finished painting and Emma's colored eyelids fluttered open.

"A little over six." Henry's image popped back into her tortured mind.

"Then it should be fine," mumbled the woman, chewing on her colored bottom lip. "Wait, have you had children?" She asked, urgency on her voice.

"Yes," Emma was on the brink of tears.

"How many?" The woman demanded.

"Just one."

"Take off your dress." The woman commanded her. Her shock might have been conceived as disobedience, Emma thought, because the strange woman pounced at her and pulled the white, cotton gown over Emma's head herself. Then she circled her in slow, small steps, observing her naked body thoroughly. "No stretch marks…" she mumbled to herself. "That's good. Spread your legs."

"What?" Emma protested, but the woman huffed and assertively pushed Emma's legs apart.

"You're a harlot now, you better get used to people telling you to do that." She muttered while examining and valuing the damage Henry's birth had caused. The situation was so bizarre Emma could hardly believe it was even real- it felt more likely to be a part of a particularly strange nightmare.

"Okay, I think that if you'll hold your legs tight enough together tonight you'll pass for a virgin, and later on we could just say that it looks like that because of what the lucky winner did to you. He wouldn't dare say otherwise, he'd become a local hero for it." The woman mused. Emma felt sick. "Okay, now, we have to pick a name for you."

"My name is Emma," said Emma, baffled.

"Yeah, and my name is Ruby, but no one cares. All they care about is Red, because Red delivers the goods. Ruby is just one unfortunate soul in a house full of souls just as miserable, no one cares about her." She answered indifferently. "Just like no one cares about Emma anymore. Welcome to your new world, Goldilocks." At Emma's resentful face she added: "You don't have to like your name. You look like a doll with those yellow curls and some people like to feel like they're fucking something innocent until it breaks, it gets them hard. Which brings me to another important point," She gave her a meaningful glare to make sure she was paying attention. "A happy costumer equals more money for the madam. More money for the madam equals more food on our plates. And more importantly, an unhappy costumer equals less money for the madam. And less money for the madam-" She rolled up her sleeve, so that Emma could see a long, ugly scar that seemed to have been inflicted by an unattended wound, or a burn. "Is not good for us." She rolled her sleeve back down. "I have an uglier one, below my right breast, but I figured I'd spare you the inconvenience." She added in a light tone. Emma's mind was running wild. "So if a costumer tells you to turn around and bend over, you turn around, bend over, and pretend to like it, unless he's not into it. And if a costumer asks you what do we do after the saloon is closed, you don't tell him that we eat our lousy dinners and cry ourselves to sleep, you tell him, and you go down to the tiniest, most disgusting details, about how we strip naked and have wild orgies until dawn breaks. Is that clear to you?"

Emma looked down, tears gathering in her eyes. Red grabbed her by the arm harshly. "Do you understand what I just told you, Goldilocks?" She asked her firmly, forcing her to create an eye contact.

It was just too much. Emma's head spun, she sweated. When she reached up to wipe her face, her fingers came back covered with the weird-smelling pink material. She whimpered uncontrollably. Red sighed. "Listen… Emma. You look young. How old are you?"

"I'm twenty four," Emma replied with a sigh of her own.

"Okay, stop crying, you're ruining your face, I worked hard on it. Now listen, Emma. You're young. She doesn't usually give the young ones to the extreme cases. She won't let any mental train-wreck touch you for now. You're pretty and your skin and teeth are healthy, so she'll charge more for you, and so less people will be able to afford you so you'll work less, and if you'll do a good job you'll probably become one of her favorites. And take it from one of the favorites, you want to be a favorite. You're not in such a bad starting point. Better from where most of us started off, actually. So get a grip, this is your life now."

Emma sniffed. "I miss my son, Ruby." She told the complete stranger, who had, in the light of the circumstances, become the only person she could trust. Ruby's face hardened.

"I told you, there is no Ruby." She said, and Emma recognized a hint of self-conviction in her words, but then her face softened with expertly concealed compassion. "And we all do, Goldilocks. We all miss our children."

The hand on Emma's arm suddenly became more consoling than forcing, the brown glare suddenly softer. Emma felt the need to hug her, cling to her, but repressed it harshly. "Let's get you dressed," said Ruby and took Emma's hand in hers, leading her down the stairs and into a dressing room. Ruby collected a few clothes and handed them over to Emma. "We want you to look innocent. Remember, you're a virgin for tonight. Put it on."

Emma hesitated, but then quickly undressed and wore the simple, white, shapeless, wide dress. Almost like a bride's wedding dress. "You're wearing it back to front," commented Ruby patiently. Emma sled her hands back through the cotton sleeves and turned the dress around her body, only to find out that the front Ruby was talking about was a long, triangular cut which exposed her chest and the inner sides of her breasts, its tip almost reaching her bellybutton. "We still need them to want to pay for you." Ruby bitterly remarked. She took a step towards her and put a dried up, colorful wreath of flowers on the crown of her head. "There." She said, and sadness invaded her tone and the look in her eyes.

Ruby took Emma by the hand to a clean wooden door that reeked of perfume, then knocked. "Come in," said a voice, which Emma recognized as the madam's.

They entered the room. "Good evening, ma'am. This is Goldilocks." Said Ruby with careful, meticulous manners.

"You may leave us alone, Red." Said Madam Ursula, while examining Emma with cold, dark eyes.

Hours later, when she was lifted on a chair and watched how hungry, unfamiliar eyes devour her possessively and how desperate mouths shout higher and higher prices for her virginity and her body for the night, she looked at the madam's greedy, pleased expression and tried to banish every thought of Henry from her head- she would not allow him to witness what was happening to her, what would happen to her later that night - not even in her thoughts.

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 **That's it for this time, I hope you enjoyed it :) Please leave a review to tell me what did you think :3**


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